Emilia Clarke featured in every season of Game of Thrones
Game of Thrones star Emilia Clarke revealed how she’s missing ‘quite a bit’ of her brain after suffering two aneurysms.
While Game of Thrones has been off our screen for five years now, it’s still talked about regularly to this day.
And that is in part thanks to the actors involved with it, including Clarke who played Daenerys Targaryen.
She starred in the HBO series from season one to the very end and is long-regarded as one of its best characters.
Away from the camera, however, Clarke had been suffering from life-threatening health problems, which unfolded in 2011 and 2013.
The actor had two ‘excruciating’ brain aneurysms, but thankfully she lived to tell the tale.
According to the US’ National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, a brain aneurysm ‘is a weak or thin spot on an artery in the brain that balloons or bulges out and fills with blood’.
It can cause serious health problems such as a stroke, brain damage, and even death.
Speaking of her experience of brain aneurysms, Clarke told BBC’s Sunday Morning in 2022: “The amount of my brain that is no longer usable – it’s remarkable that I am able to speak, sometimes articulately, and live my life completely normally with absolutely no repercussions.
“I am in the really, really, really small minority of people that can survive that.”
The 37-year-old was then asked about seeing a scan of her brain during that time.
Clarke detailed: “There’s quite a bit missing, which always makes me laugh.
“Because strokes, basically, as soon as any part of your brain doesn’t get blood for a second, it’s gone.
“And so the blood finds a different route to get around but then whatever bit it’s missing is therefore gone.”
In a separate interview, the actor described the ‘excruciating pain’ she suffered as a result of the brain injuries as well as her fear of being fired from Game of Thrones.
Some of her symptoms included repeated vomiting and left her trying to stay conscious and maintain her brain function.
Clarke told Big Issue: “When you have a brain injury, because it alters your sense of self on such a dramatic level, all of the insecurities you have going into the workplace quadruple overnight.
“The first fear we all had was: ‘Oh my God, am I going to get fired? Am I going to get fired because they think I’m not capable of completing the job?’”